The Dogs of Babel

by Carolyn Parkhurst

  “I suppose,” I said. “But are you sure you want to be a part of this?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m sure.”

  At the time, I found the whole business unsavory. It seemed to me an act of desperation on the part of the girl’s parents, an unwillingness to let go. Even without knowing this dead girl, I doubted she would have chosen this as the way she wanted her parents to grieve. To keep her dead face in their home, always in sight? To keep them rooted forever to the moment of her death? If the goal of grief is to learn to move on, I thought, to learn how to inhabit the same space as absence and to keep living anyhow, then surely these sad people were doing a disservice not only to themselves but to the memory of their poor lost daughter.

  But now, having come to know grief as intimately as I have, having lived in its bare rooms for so long and walked its empty halls, I’m not so sure they were wrong.

  When Lexy died, I admit I took some cloistered comfort in seeing that her face had not been bruised in the fall. And in spite of what I may have said, when the time came I did have an open casket at her funeral, and every time someone said to me, “Oh, she looks so beautiful,” it was like a balm to me. When I knelt by her coffin, my mind wiped suddenly blank of all my childhood prayers, and I reached out to touch her cheek, I stared as hard as I could bear to and I fixed in my mind every detail of the way she looked, because I knew it would be the last time I would ever lay my eyes on her. Would I want a mask of Lexy as she looked in death, to hang on the wall, perhaps, next to the mask of Lexy as she looked in life? No. But I would not presume to tell any other grief-sick wanderer that what he needs is wrong. I would not dare.

  I was afraid that embarking on such a morbid project would throw Lexy into a fit of melancholy, but when she came home she was glowing.

  “She was beautiful,” she said. “Very gaunt, from the illness, but you could see she had really beautiful features.”

  I tried to picture the dead girl, waiflike on the slab. I could not quite imagine beauty there.

  “They hadn’t put the makeup on her yet, you know, for the funeral, so her skin was very pale. I had to work quickly—they needed me to be done by this afternoon. But it didn’t take me very long to make the mold. Not to be morbid, but it’s easier when you don’t have to keep telling the person to stay still.”

  “Was she cold?” I asked. I hadn’t spent much time around dead bodies. Even when my father died, I had kind of kept my distance at the funeral.

  “Not ice-cold. But cool. Cooler than a living person.”

  “Did you talk to the parents?”

  “Yeah, of course. I sat down with them to discuss what they wanted the end product to be like.”

  “And what were they like?” At this point, I still couldn’t imagine a healthy-minded person doing such a thing.

  “They seemed very normal. Sad, of course. The father started crying at one point. But they were very grateful that I was willing to do this for them. They were afraid they wouldn’t find anyone.”

  With good reason, I wanted to say. But I kept quiet.

  “Listen,” I said instead. “What do you say we go out and get some dinner? After a day like that, you need to be among the living.”

  “Actually,” she said, “do you mind if we just order something in? I’m kind of anxious to go downstairs and get to work on this while it’s all fresh in my mind.”

  “Okay,” I said. I was disappointed. It was a Friday night, and I’d been looking forward to spending it with Lexy, doing something nice together, getting a start on the weekend. We were still newlyweds, after all. But it had been a while since I’d seen her so excited about a project, and as distasteful as I found it myself, I didn’t want to ruin her good mood. I went into the kitchen and ordered a pizza.

  Lexy worked all weekend on the mask, coming upstairs only to get food from the kitchen or to pace around the living room, deep in thought. Lorelei spent most of the time down in the basement with Lexy, as she always did when Lexy was working, so it was a rather solitary couple of days for me. On Sunday night, I was sitting in the living room reading when I looked up to see Lorelei standing in front of me.

  “Hi, girl,” I said. I reached out to pat her head, and as I did, I noticed there was a piece of paper sticking out of her collar. I removed it. It said, “Ms. Alexandra Ransome requests the honour of your presence in the basement for an unveiling of her latest work.” I laughed, and all was forgiven. I walked to the basement door, with Lorelei trailing behind me.

  Lexy was stretched out on the battered couch when I got downstairs. The mask was on the worktable, covered with a cloth.

  “Did you just get the note?” she asked, standing up. “I sent Lorelei up a half hour ago.”

  “I guess the Ridgeback Express isn’t as quick as it could be. You never know when she’ll have to make an unscheduled stop to eat a bug or something.”

  “So are you ready to see it?” I could feel her excitement from across the room.

  “Absolutely,” I said. I steeled myself and got ready to lie when she asked me what I thought.

  She sat me down and made me close my eyes. She put the mask in my hands. I opened my eyes with some trepidation.

  It was beautiful, what she had made. I was surprised at how beautiful it was. In my narrow imagination, I had supposed she would paint the mask from life (or from death, as it were), the color of pale flesh, the lips blanched and barely pink, fine lash-lines highlighting the bumps of the closed eyes. I had imagined, I guess, that the mask would look dead. But that was not the way she did it at all. She had painted the face white, a stark white background, with a field of bright flowers that stretched from cheek to cheek. The colors were vibrant—no soft pastels, no pinks and baby blues. There were stems and leaves in bright, vivid greens, topped with blossoms of red and purple and yellow and teal, their petals touched with gold like a glint of sunglow. These were not the kinds of flowers that would have been sent to the girl’s funeral, formal and somber, carefully arranged. These were wildflowers, windblown and growing every which way.

  The girl’s features were barely visible. Lexy hadn’t emphasized them at all; in fact, you could look at the piece and not realize right away that it was a face. The soft hollows of the eyes, the bump of the nose, the curve of the lips, were written beneath the flowers like a palimpsest. But once I noticed them, I couldn’t stop looking. I could see the youth in the face, the promise of a beauty she might have grown into. But the mask wasn’t sad, that was the extraordinary thing. Even knowing that the girl whose face had served as the model had since been laid in the ground, it didn’t make me sad to look at it. In a way, I think that a photograph of the girl, laughing and alive, might have been more upsetting—think of those yearbook photos that appear in the newspaper every spring alongside stories of tragic car crashes on graduation night. The lost potential of those newly dead kids, shown in their uncomfortable new suits and their formal smiles. It breaks your heart; it never fails. But this mask was different, somehow. It lacked that pathos. It portrayed what was, not what might have been. Looking at it, I saw that there can be grace in death, and beauty. I saw what I imagined the girl’s parents must have seen when they took Lexy by the arm and asked her to look upon their daughter.

  I sat silent for a moment, gazing at the mask. All of the quick words of false praise that I had prepared melted away.

  “Well?” Lexy asked.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said. “It’s nothing like what I expected.”

  “You thought it would be terrible, didn’t you?” she said, smiling.

  “Honestly? Yes.” I studied the mask a moment more. “But do you think it’s what the parents had in mind? It’s a little abstract. Maybe they’re expecting something a little more realistic.”

  She regarded me warily. “What do you mean?” she said.

  “Well, I just wonder if they were expecting more of a realistic likeness, painted the way she actually looked.”

  Lexy stiffened. �
�It’s her face,” she said. “That’s what they wanted. They wanted her face.”

  “Well, yes, of course, but did you tell them you might be doing something like this?”

  “‘Something like this’?” she said. “What do you mean, ‘something like this’?” Her voice rose as she spoke.

  I stood up and took a step toward her, reaching out to put my hand on her arm, but she shook it away.

  “Don’t get upset,” I said. “I think this is wonderful—I think it’s one of the best pieces you’ve done. I just wonder if the parents are in the right state of mind to appreciate it.”

  “You think they’re going to hate it,” she said. “You don’t think it’s good. Give it to me.” She grabbed the mask from my hands.

  “No, Lexy, that’s not what I said at all. Calm down.”

  She looked down at the mask, which was trembling in her hands. “You hate it,” she said, her voice ragged. She began to cry, painful, racking sobs. “You hate it. It’s terrible.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “You hate it.” She threw the mask to the floor and stepped on it hard. The pâpier-maché was stiff and resisted the force of her bare foot.

  “Stop it, Lexy,” I said. “You’re being ridiculous. Stop it.”

  She picked up the mask and flung it violently onto the worktable. She picked up a knife that she used to trim masks after they had hardened, and she pounded the blade into the mask again and again. The pâpier-maché splintered and sent up a cloud of fine white dust. She kept stabbing at it until the surface of the face was pocked with holes and the nose had dissolved into powder. Then she put the knife down and stared at what she had done. She dropped her face into her hands and sobbed until her body shook.

  I stood back, horrified and a little angry. “What did you do that for?” I asked roughly.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Her voice sounded strangled, as if she weren’t getting enough air. “I don’t know.”

  I stood and watched her, unable to move forward and comfort her. Finally, she took her hands away from her face and looked at me. Her skin was red, and there was a string of pale crescents across her forehead, where she had dug her fingernails into her flesh.

  “Do you see?” she said. “Do you see why I can’t have children?” She turned and walked up the stairs. I stood in the basement, staring at the ruined mask, and listened to her footsteps cross the floor above me. I heard the front door open and close, and I knew I was alone.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I call the Psychic Helpline compulsively every day, hoping to hear Lady Arabelle’s voice. Usually I hang up when I hear the psychic’s name, when I know that it’s not her, but sometimes, when I’m feeling lonely, I get pulled in by a certain voice, and I wait to find out what she has to tell me. (Or he. But it’s almost always a woman.) Sometimes I tell her my whole story, and sometimes I let her try to figure it out for herself. “I’m sure it was an accident,” they always say. “It sounds like she loved you very much.” They tell me, “You are not alone, although you might feel like you are.” They tell me that if I only wait a little longer, I’ll have financial windfalls and love will come my way. They tell me not to lose hope. They tell me that the cards show bright skies ahead. The Death card means change, not death. They ask me if I have a specific question, and I don’t know what to say. Did she kill herself? I can’t bring myself to form the words. Will I teach my dog to talk? How can I ask such a question without inviting ridicule? I asked one of them, “Do you see anything about animals? Do you see anything about a dog?” and she assured me that my lost dog was alive and well and would return home soon. Some of them are sly and cruel and will resort to anything to keep you on the phone. One of them told me I was sick, and one of them told me she foresaw an accident, but that if I stayed on the line a little longer, we might be able to find a way to prevent it. “Have you been feeling run-down lately?” they ask, and who can honestly say they haven’t when it’s one A.M. and they’re talking on the phone to a stranger? They say, “There’s a woman you work with . . . I’m seeing an S name maybe? Or an R name?” The first time one of them asked me if I knew a woman with an L name, I felt my heart quicken. But when I didn’t answer right away, not trusting my voice to be steady, she said, “No, maybe it’s a T name. Terry? Theresa?” and I knew she had nothing. On the occasions when I tell them about Lexy, and I must say those are becoming more frequent, they ask me for her birthday. They tell me to picture her face as they deal the cards. And I do. I focus on her face with all my might. They tell me things about our marriage based on my astrological sign and hers. It’s all kind of hit-or-miss. “She was very neat, wasn’t she?” they’ll say, and I’ll say no. But then they’ll say, “Sometimes you fought about money,” and I’ll remember a time when I forgot to record an ATM withdrawal, causing Lexy to bounce a check. “Yes,” I say, wanting it all to be true. “Yes. Sometimes we fought about money.” They know what I want to hear. Sometimes their questions are so right it makes my heart stop. “She died suddenly,” they’ll say, and it’s not a question. But then I realize they can hear it in my voice, in the desperate note I didn’t realize was there. They can tell it’s not the voice of a man who nursed his wife through a long illness. They can tell it’s the voice of a man who still wakes up every day surprised to find her gone.

  But on the dog front, things couldn’t be going better. I’ve had the most wonderful idea, an idea that I think may be the key to the success of my project with Lorelei. The idea comes to me quite accidentally. I’m sitting in my study, working on my laptop—I’m cataloging the contents of the third shelf of books, the ones Lexy arranged on the day of her death—and I’ve typed in the following titles:

  I Had a Dream: The Civil Rights Movement and Real Life (Mine.)

  796 Ways to Say “I Love You” (Mine. I always wanted to be as spontaneous and romantic as Lexy, to be able to surprise her the way she always surprised me. So I bought this book to help plan my spontaneity. I didn’t know she knew about it.)

  Things I Wish I’d Known (Hers. A book of poetry.)

  Strange but True: Aliens in Our Midst (Hers. She bought this book for the illustrations after a customer of hers requested an alien mask for a play.)

  Forget About Yesterday and Make the Most of Today (Hers.)

  You’d Better Believe It! The World’s Most Famous Hoaxes and Practical Jokes (Mine.)

  How to Be a Success While Doing What You Love (Hers.)

  And No Pets Step on DNA (Mine. A rather silly collection of palindromes. The cover shows a laboratory full of dogs in lab coats. A sign on the wall shows a cat standing on a double helix, with a line drawn through it.)

  More 10-Minute Recipes (Hers, though I often used it. It contains some surprisingly good recipes, although they seldom live up to the ten-minute promise.)

  My Ántonia (Mine from college. I never read it.)

  A Room of One’s Own (Hers from college. I don’t know if she read it or not.)

  Places I’d Never Dreamed Of (Mine. A collection of travel writing.)

  As I type, I’m attempting at the same time to eat a ham and cheese sandwich. It’s rather awkward, and at one point, as I take a bite out of the sandwich, a morsel of cheese and a drop of mustard fall onto the letters K and L on my keyboard. I set the computer down on the floor and go to the kitchen to get a sponge, and when I return, I find Lorelei standing in front of the computer, her head bent to the keys, lapping at the space where the cheese had been. I shoo her away—who knows what damage dog saliva might do to an expensive computer?—but when I bend to wipe off the keys, I see that something quite wonderful has happened. Beneath the title of the last book I listed, Lorelei has typed a string of letters with her tongue. KKKLKLLKIKKLMLK, she has written. And that’s when it hits me, this marvelous idea, that’s when it breaks on me like day: I am going to teach Lorelei to type.

  It seems to me a perfect solution. Several weeks have gone by since the wa incident, with no further breakt
hroughs. Perhaps, I think, Lorelei’s vocal cords are not suited to speech per se, but that doesn’t mean communication isn’t possible.

  I begin to devise a plan. I am not expecting her to type words, of course, but it occurs to me that if I can teach her to associate the words she already knows—“ball,” “out,” “treat,” “Lexy”—with specific visual symbols, I can then devise a special keyboard with those same symbols, and Lorelei can type an entire word with a single touch of her nose. The keys would need to be a bit bigger than usual, to allow for the wideness of her nose as well as to provide room to display symbols large enough for Lorelei to be able to “read” them. I get to work with the flash cards. I show Lorelei a card with a single wavy line. “Water,” I say. “Water.” Then a card with a childlike lollipop drawing of a tree. “Tree,” I say. And so on. I draw Lexy as a smiling face with a curl of hair coming down each side of her head. I draw “out” with an arrow. I draw “treat” with a bone.

  But this isn’t enough. I have to teach her “sad.” I have to teach her “fall.” And “jump.” I have to make her understand the difference.

  In the end, I just create symbols for every word I think I might need. I can always teach her the meanings later.

  For the keyboard, I decide to go see an acquaintance of mine, a man named Mike Wolfe who works in the electrical engineering department at the university. Mike has an interest in linguistics, so I think he might be willing to help me out. A former student of mine once asked Mike to help him write a program that would put together random sounds to create nonsense words for a project the student was doing on language formation. It was a rather meaningless project—in fact, as I recall, the student left the department soon afterward without receiving his degree—but I was impressed with what Mike came up with.

  So I go to see Mike, and I tell him what I’m looking for. I don’t tell him it’s for a dog; I tell him I’m working with severely disabled children. I emphasize that several of them will need to hit the buttons with their noses. He nods respectfully and seems to believe me, but when I return to pick up the machine two weeks later, I see a cartoon, clearly cut from the campus newspaper, posted to the office door of one of Mike’s colleagues in the department. It shows a dog sitting in front of a computer, tongue hanging out, with a goofy look on its face. Its paws are resting on the keyboard, and a string of nonsense words are visible on the screen. Behind the dog stands a man, looking nothing like me, I must say, peering over the dog’s shoulder. “Brilliant!” the man is saying. “Don’t stop now!” The cartoon’s caption reads, “Arguments Against Tenure.”